Dedicated to my Dad, Paul Zimmerman, who advocated real freedom of religion (and freedom FROM religion) by promoting the belief that the God most people believe in is really a bully, a liar, and a great deceiver, that worshipping him is an act of self-denigration, and that realizing our self-worth as living thinking human beings is the greatest thing we can do in this world, for ourselves and for each other.

Wednesday, December 08, 2004

"Why We Don't Proselytize to Theophiles" (5/2003)

What people don't seem to get is that I am not in any way at all interested in proselytizing to theophiles. For most of them, there is no hope of their changing their minds about their beliefs—so entrenched in them have they become that it's virtually impossible to get out of the rut. And even if I could: listening to some of these people speak out about the beliefs they hold now—would I want them to stand up for maltheism, given the way they argue, the way they present their opinions, and the way they treat those who disagree with them?

No, the intent is definitely not to proselytize to such people. Their vanity may lead them to assume that they are "targets" of Maltheist "evangelism," but nothing could be further from the truth. Given their attitude towards religious belief, they would be counterexamples of everything Maltheism actually stands for.

The real intent is to simply give voice to the notion that God is not all he's cracked up to be, to let others who have already considered this notion (or are on the verge of doing so) know that they are not "crazy" for believing it nor alone in considering it. Theophilia thinks it holds a unchallenged monopoly on religious thought among the human race. Each group may violently disagree with each other and even hate each other (as God commands them to) but one thing they "agree" on is the erroneous belief that God is good, and challenges to that supposedly "universal" anti-glue that bonds these people together in the act of separating themselves from each other are the greatest "blasphemy" imaginable.